Movie News, Reviews, and Discussion Super-Thread

[TVC15]

That has nothing to do with movies. Getting this back on track...

[Stoney Mason]

Watched Alita: Battle Angel

Kind of a mess imo. Felt like I was watching one of those comic book adaptions from the early 90's and that isn't a compliment coming from me. I felt like the movie was constantly going for cool and instead felt goofy. But not goofy enough to be unique. But goofy as in, its hard for me not to roll my eyes. Most of the good actors are wasted with this material. Maybe would have worked better as an animated movie where you can have a different sensibility when doing fantastical things compared to live action. But I hated the action scenes. Everything had that weightless cg feel modern special effects have. The story was either by the books or felt under-served by what was taking place on screen. I have no idea how faithful or unfaithful it was to the source material but either way I didn't like the feel and tone of the movie.

Maybe a 4 out of 10 for me.

I know it was reviewed quite well so there was definitely a disconnect between me and the critical review crowd.

[bork]

Watched Alita: Battle Angel

Kind of a mess imo. Felt like I was watching one of those comic book adaptions from the early 90's and that isn't a compliment coming from me. I felt like the movie was constantly going for cool and instead felt goofy. But not goofy enough to be unique. But goofy as in, its hard for me not to roll my eyes. Most of the good actors are wasted with this material. Maybe would have worked better as an animated movie where you can have a different sensibility when doing fantastical things compared to live action. But I hated the action scenes. Everything had that weightless cg feel modern special effects have. The story was either by the books or felt under-served by what was taking place on screen. I have no idea how faithful or unfaithful it was to the source material but either way I didn't like the feel and tone of the movie.

Maybe a 4 out of 10 for me.

I know it was reviewed quite well so there was definitely a disconnect between me and the critical review crowd.

The story changed some things up from the original (which got its owned animated version in the 90s- check it out for comparison!) and they shoehorned the motorball stuff in too quickly.  Motorball is what followed the first part of the story and had its own set of characters.

[bork]

HAY GUYZ

Remember how AWESOME that Sony reboot of Ghostbusters was?  Well, here's Sony's ULTRA-WOKE Charlie's Angel's remake!

Sony Pictures dropped the newest trailer for the woke reboot of Charlie’s Angels. It’s got Elizabeth Banks, with production by Elizabeth Banks, a screenplay by Elizabeth Banks, and its also written by Elizabeth Banks… oh, and did I mention that it’s directed by Elizabeth Banks? Because Elizabeth Banks also directed the film, and it also stars Elizabeth Banks, in case you didn’t know that Elizabeth Banks is in the film, because she is.

[Don Rumata]

HAY GUYZ

Remember how AWESOME that Sony reboot of Ghostbusters was?  Well, here's Sony's ULTRA-WOKE Charlie's Angel's remake!

Sony Pictures dropped the newest trailer for the woke reboot of Charlie’s Angels. It’s got Elizabeth Banks, with production by Elizabeth Banks, a screenplay by Elizabeth Banks, and its also written by Elizabeth Banks… oh, and did I mention that it’s directed by Elizabeth Banks? Because Elizabeth Banks also directed the film, and it also stars Elizabeth Banks, in case you didn’t know that Elizabeth Banks is in the film, because she is.

UGH, another classic, remade with an all-female cast.

[Don Rumata]

Shouldn't a modern twist on Charlie's Angels be a team of Go-Go Boys?

I'd watch that if it had strong femdom vibes.

[Tasty]

HAY GUYZ

Remember how AWESOME that Sony reboot of Ghostbusters was?  Well, here's Sony's ULTRA-WOKE Charlie's Angel's remake!

Sony Pictures dropped the newest trailer for the woke reboot of Charlie’s Angels. It’s got Elizabeth Banks, with production by Elizabeth Banks, a screenplay by Elizabeth Banks, and its also written by Elizabeth Banks… oh, and did I mention that it’s directed by Elizabeth Banks? Because Elizabeth Banks also directed the film, and it also stars Elizabeth Banks, in case you didn’t know that Elizabeth Banks is in the film, because she is.

Anything by Arianna Grande is a no from me. Fuck that dumb bitch.

[team filler]

she killed mac miller

[Kara]

HAY GUYZ

Remember how AWESOME that Sony reboot of Ghostbusters was?  Well, here's Sony's ULTRA-WOKE Charlie's Angel's remake!

How was this appreciably different than the trailer for the last one?



You spend too much time reading / posting in the shite thread.

[Joe Molotov]

Shouldn't a modern twist on Charlie's Angels be a team of Go-Go Boys?

Starring Emiliano, Emiliano, and Emiliano. 27 stars, says TVC.

[Bebpo]

Saw Annabelle Comes Home - Was the most wholesome horror film. Feels like they should screen it in churches to warn kids not to mess with spirits. I have no idea how this is rated R. There is no graphic violence, no gore and no one curses and no nudity, wtf? It's a straight up pg-13 film. In fact

spoiler (click to show/hide)

No one even dies in the movie

[close]

It's a so-so film. The characters are fine but they really drag out the tension/scares scenes to the point I was like c'mon already get to the jump scare. So in other words it was kinda boring. The best part was probably the 5-8 min intro scene featuring the main Warren couple. They're both very likeable actors with good chemistry, wish they were in the actual film (they aren't outside the first 5-8 mins and the last 3 mins). Definitely on board for Conjuring 3 next year even if the director is iffy since these two characters have enough draw to enjoy watching them.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

HAY GUYZ

Remember how AWESOME that Sony reboot of Ghostbusters was?  Well, here's Sony's ULTRA-WOKE Charlie's Angel's remake!

Sony Pictures dropped the newest trailer for the woke reboot of Charlie’s Angels. It’s got Elizabeth Banks, with production by Elizabeth Banks, a screenplay by Elizabeth Banks, and its also written by Elizabeth Banks… oh, and did I mention that it’s directed by Elizabeth Banks? Because Elizabeth Banks also directed the film, and it also stars Elizabeth Banks, in case you didn’t know that Elizabeth Banks is in the film, because she is.

I'm glad Andrew Yang is limelight as a presidential candidate while hitting on my wife Kristen Stewart.

bire members getting ruffled over a charlies angel movie starring kristne stewart :

This just reminded me I want to rewatch adventureland, and that made me think of stewart and reynolds , whilst I was getting chubbed up Patrick showed up.

This next wave of deadpool movies are gonna be great.

[Coax]

I remember owning the Destiny's Child single from the previous reboot. Probably the most memorable thing about it.

[Himu]

Child's Play was legit.

[Momo]

HAY GUYZ

Remember how AWESOME that Sony reboot of Ghostbusters was?  Well, here's Sony's ULTRA-WOKE Charlie's Angel's remake!

Sony Pictures dropped the newest trailer for the woke reboot of Charlie’s Angels. It’s got Elizabeth Banks, with production by Elizabeth Banks, a screenplay by Elizabeth Banks, and its also written by Elizabeth Banks… oh, and did I mention that it’s directed by Elizabeth Banks? Because Elizabeth Banks also directed the film, and it also stars Elizabeth Banks, in case you didn’t know that Elizabeth Banks is in the film, because she is.

jonathan tucker deserves better than this, guy's become legit great over the last 5 or so years

[Transhuman]

Just heard about Jeon Mi-seon. Fucking sucks. She was in Memories of Murder, but apparently she was more well known for a bunch of horror stuff she did (I don't watch horror, but I may have to check one out in her memory).

[team filler]

 

[Transhuman]

(Korean lady dead)

[team filler]

 

[Madrun Badrun]

Elizabeth Banks is great

[VomKriege]

More topical here than within US politics...

Just pretend it's the original Scarface with Cagney

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm surprised the De Palma get so little love to be honest here

[close]

Just that movie in particular, it was Breaking Bad before Breaking Bad was a thing (with slightly less absurd racial dynamics).

The rest of his portfolio is obvious schlock with the odd hit (Mission: Impossible iirc).

I think the schlock (vulgar, crass) part is very much the intent with De Palma. I would agree his films have a tendency to be uneven and there's relatively only a few that works as a complete package (Mission : Impossible and Phantom of the Paradise off the top of my head are the two I really like a lot) but there's a lot of memorable sequences all throughout his career, not unlike the other branch of the film family that is Giallo with which he shares quite a bit. Ultimately it's not to eberyone's taste -sometimes I roll my eyes when his homages are too transparent- but there's not a lot of outright stinkers in his filmography (Mission to Mars is the only one I found utterly mediocre in everyway. It has a weird interesting score by Morriconne IIRC that doesn't get used fully in the film.).

I'm not a huge fan of Scarface, all things told, but it gets points for me just for how iconic and influential it is -even if or perhaps because of all the wrong reasons-.

[Madrun Badrun]

http://geekdommovies.com/the-original-jurassic-park-1993-characters-to-come-back-to-jurassic-world-3/

[Tasty]

Nobody's ever really gone.

[toku]

Didn't hate alita, was pleasantly surprised.

[Bebpo]

Didn't hate alita, was pleasantly surprised.

It's pretty solid with great action and violence. Just has a non-ending.

[toku]

Way more violent than I expected for sure.

[Kara]

Ultimately it's not to eberyone's taste -sometimes I roll my eyes when his homages are too transparent- but there's not a lot of outright stinkers in his filmography (Mission to Mars is the only one I found utterly mediocre in everyway. It has a weird interesting score by Morriconne IIRC that doesn't get used fully in the film.).

Mec... he followed up Mission: Impossible with a murderer's row of trash movies: Snake Eyes, Mission to Mars, Femme Fatale, and The Black Dahlia.

[VomKriege]

Snake Eyes has some cool bits and I like Femme Fatale, something about the weird mix of flat Made for TV French movie and De Palma typical deviousness.
Black Dalhia was really bad.

[Tasty]

A whole page of DePalma talk and no one has even mentioned Carrie?

They're all gonna laugh at you!

[Great Rumbler]

I still like Mission to Mars. Don't @ me.

[Tasty]

Mission to Mars is one of those movies that I desperately wanted to see as a kid because I loved the setup/concept, but never got around to, and now I'm cautious about "re"visiting it.

[Great Rumbler]

I got my dad to take me and I was like "Woah, cool science!" I've watched it a few times since and still like it. Now, it's a bad movie, don't me wrong, but...

[Tasty]

Hmmm... nah.

[TVC15]

Bitches please



Sisters is pretty great, too. People seem to skip that one.

[Don Rumata]

Hmmm... nah.

One of those films that didn't need to be remade, since it's all in the execution, rather than the premise.

[Tripon]

Spider man Far From Home was good. People should watch it.

[bork]

Spider-Man Night Monkey was fun

[Madrun Badrun]

great way to do a sequel

[chronovore]

Hmmm... nah.

It's including my favorite line from the original in the trailer, and I like the lead actor. I'm in.

[Joe Molotov]

Midsommar

A beautiful and unsettling movie that goes exactly where you think it will, but it takes a long slow ride to get there. That's not a bad thing, I like the occasional slow-burn horror movie and not every movie needs to be packed with twists and turns. There's not a single jump-scare to be had, just some horrible things that everyone except the characters in the movie see coming from a hundred miles away. Even at 2 1/2 hours though, it didn't feel long. The tension is expertly ratcheted for the entire runtime, without only occasional spurts of violence to release some of the tension before cranking it back up again until the inevitable climax.



And the ending is worth the wait. It's batshit, it's ridiculous, it horrifying, it's weird, it's everything. *chef's kiss* It's what Avengers: Endlame should have been.

(TVC, click this spoiler if you need an excuse to watch this movie)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Especially the circle of naked old crones grunting and grabbing a dude's ass while he's having unprotected sex.

[close]

I don't really have much to say about the rest of the plot, it exists. It does the things it needs to do to go where it wants to go. The character development is above average for a horror movie. Dani has a tragic backstory. She's trapped in a loveless relationship with Christian, who she relies on for support but he's already emotionally checked out. He's wants someone less needy but he's too afraid to make a change. He does have the one generic douchenozzle friend (who's perfect fodder for later) but his other friend is working on his doctoral thesis on midsummer festivals, and then they have a local friend (with a secret thing for Dani) who invites them to Sweden for his hometown festival. It's not exactly Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but it's good enough for a movie where...

(TVC, click this spoiler if you need another excuse to watch this movie)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Someone gets Blood Eagle'd.

[close]

4/5, fun for the whole family.

[Madrun Badrun]

Seeing spiderman in a half hour.  HYPED

[Madrun Badrun]

What a movie!  And it probably has the two biggest post credits scenes. 

[Huff]

http://geekdommovies.com/the-original-jurassic-park-1993-characters-to-come-back-to-jurassic-world-3/

I am the biggest JP fan around and even I can’t get on board with the last one

Ellie and crew need to stay away from the next pile of shit

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Escape Plan: The Extractors (AKA Escape Plan 3) is nasty, brutish, and short (end credits roll before the 80 minute mark). Its also pretty dang bad. It does have a few half-decent punch ups courtesy of its supporting cast (Jin 'Max' Zhang and Dave Bautista fighting his own Herculean stunt double) so its not a complete wash, but its close. Stallone is in it more than the also China-pandering previous low budget installment, but its lacking the outlandish touches that made all the stuff between fight scenes fun or at least tolerable. Here you've got former teen heartthrob Devon Sawa (an almost high point, he's trying hard at least) who's matured into a guy who can sneer well as the villain but everything is so rudimentary and joyless as to make it tough slog, even at its abbreviated running time.

Sly really might want to think about hanging it up. I know he's doing this for a paycheck, but really its dispiriting watching him go through the motions like a 90's Charles Bronson on HGH just so somebody else can do all the action movie heavy lifting.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

Booksmart is easily one of the best things I've seen this year. Smart, hilarious, with surprisingly strong technical chops. Cast perfectly too (large ensemble, no weak links). Its just gol-dern great.

I so liked Brawl in Cell Block 99. Zahler's followup, Dragged Across Concrete isn't as strong but its still pretty good. Maybe because I just saw Doctor Zhivago I dont mind so much the two and a half hours plus running time, there's lots of little and long character bits and table setting, but it all pays off in its placidly chaotic back half. It has the basic gist of a lean and  B-movie with none of the lean-ness but surplus amounts of the mean. Pitiless in a way that's rare for a Western film, especially one with established movie stars in it, its willingness to zag than zig is laudable and most often interesting. Most often, its penchant for speechifying drags it down a bit and makes thuddingly obvious things that the film better explains about its characters through action and dialog. It has to.show and tell. Still pretty dang good tho.

[Tripon]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

Who knew that CNN-News 18 would be the one who released a spoiler filled review for Spiderman?  The review link under spoilers because the thumbnail is a spoiler.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

actually I'm pretty sure they're at least breaking even on these if not making something of decent profit.

This one, and its previous installment both had Chinese investment, so they very likely sold off the Chinese distribution rights to whomever covered that unknown portion of the budget. This is a big reason obviously why you've got Chinese actors of some repute in them both. Stallone and Bautista may be on the covers, but the real stars of these are Jin Zhang and Xiaoming Huang.

So even with what would be an unusually large budget for a direct to video film, they're still not that exactly as they get theatrical play in China and secondary markets. This sort of piecemeal financing for a film, especially a non-studio film is nothing new, but having a reliable and deep pocketed partner to cater to, to the effect that the final product is a much shaped to fit their wants as anything else is a bit new. Not unlike the recent Statham pic The Meg or going further back Red Sun (Italian movies did this a LOT) which had itself a pan-national cast representing all its disparate financial interests.



Point is, the financial risk would have been spread to many parties, the biggest slice probably went to Chinese financiers and I doubt very much they're unhappy with their result.

[Madrun Badrun]

Shaft was alright.  Skyscraper was kinda meh. 

[Bebpo]

Saw Spider-Man Far from Home - As a comic reader and Mysterio being one of my top3 Spidey antagonists the movie was about what I expected. Not much really surprising or particularly sastisfying, but nothing bad either and Jake was a pretty good Mysterio and they did a nice job emulating Mysterio's abilities. Was cute & fun and

spoiler (click to show/hide)

the most interesting part was the post-credit scene, because it makes it seem like Far From Home Pt.2 with the traditional spiderman storyline of J. Jonah (JK Simmons coming back was a huge awesome surprise) turning the city against spider-man + mysterio pt.2 (probably with another villian, maybe Sinister Six?) will be a much more interesting film than this one.

Mysterio faking his death and turning it against Spider-man was the most Mysterio thing of the whole movie, so yeah post-credits was best scene

Second best scene was when Happy tries to throw the shield and he's like "how does Cap do it??"

[close]

Seeing Midsommar tomorrow...pretty excited for that one.

[ToxicAdam]

Spider Man was good. The high points being the opening scene (the spoof on student productions) and Mysterios illusion where he almost takes out Spider Man. There were some weak parts (the final battle), but it still had that perfect tone that the first one did. It never gets too overwrought with drama or too jokey. Just expertly made movies with lots of nice little touches in every scene.

[Bebpo]

Actually second best scene in Spider-man was,

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where Mysterio names his team of villians and they're all like generic IT people from the office. That was great.

[close]

Third best was yeah, probably the opening montage and news report.

The action scenes were ok, there were no real interesting antagonists for him to fight so it was just a lot of jumping around and didn't do all that much for me. Best action scene was the really long illusion just for how comic book trippy it was, though wasn't really "action" per se.

Also a huge part of the movie is having to put aside all sense of disbelief as the way spider-man can get trapped in illusions makes zero science sense, but hey the comics do it so I'm fine with it being more comic and less realistic.

[Crash Dummy]

What a movie!  And it probably has the two biggest post credits scenes.

you should've mentioned how hot jake gyllenhaal is in this too. also spoilerish question:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

when mysterio mentions the different earths as part of his bullshit backstory, i'm pretty sure earth 616 in the comics has some significance so any chance of proper multiverse shenanigans going forward?

[close]

[Bebpo]

Pretty sure that was just trolling comic fans. If anything putting that in there makes me think they will never go there with the movies.

[Huff]

I thought Spider-Man Far from Home was great. Started a little slow but probably needed as the first film after endgame. Peter's emotional arc was really satisfying + thought him/happy/aunt M were all really good. The psychedelic fight scenes great shots.

-----

Midsommar so I didn't watch hereditary . But the gf wanted to go watch this, so we did. It was interesting. I don't think I'd call it good? The American characters felt very one dimensional. Great scenes/shot/colors/etc. Music was also really fitting, mix of kinda warn swedish with an undertone of creep.
Outside of the

spoiler (click to show/hide)

suicide scene

[close]

none of the horrors was all that shocking and some were kinda expected.
The lead actress played Dani really great. Other characters you just don't care about.
I don't think the last scene fit that well. For as long as it was, a lot of the sub plots and story just kinda fizzled out without any answers.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dani wasn't planned to go. So was the boyfriend always going to be set up as the bad dude? Or did the community adjust that on the fly?
The bear/bad analogy didn't feel set up. Instead was like now your in a bear costume and you will burn to death. 

[close]

I guess overall I'm just left with: whats the point of the story. At least it was cool to look at.

[VomKriege]

Saw I Mostri in a theater, the classic Italian sketch film (with bits directed by Risi, Scola,etc...) starring Ugo Tognazzi and Vittorio Gassman (pretty great transformations from role to role, by the way, they look genuinely different.) in a variety of musings about contemporary society. Didn't lose much of its bite despite being half a century old yet and there's only one small skit that really wouldn't fly by 2019 standard (with polyamorous bisexuals at the beach). Oh and maybe the one with Gassman in drag... My favourite is probably the bit with the Member of Parliament claiming he is bound by his duty to listen to a corruption whistleblower and then having his whole day as a giant exercice on dodging said whistleblower all while keeping plausible deniability .

Restored recently and they did a good job (hard to judge the finer points like image texture in that particuar screening).

The last sketch, involving two washed out boxers, is a really depressing, heart breaking way to end the film however. I am content. I am content.

[Madrun Badrun]

Spider Man was good. The high points being the opening scene (the spoof on student productions) and Mysterios illusion where he almost takes out Spider Man. There were some weak parts (the final battle), but it still had that perfect tone that the first one did. It never gets too overwrought with drama or too jokey. Just expertly made movies with lots of nice little touches in every scene.

I liked the final battle a lot.  It's hard to make Mysterio feel powerful after you know his game and the final battle did that. 

[Nintex]

Watched the Super Duper Cut of Deadpool 2 in 4k.

Good times. However, I do wonder about the longevity of these movies.
Jokes such as: "What is Dubstep?" or "Who abused you kid, the guy that looks like Jared Kushner?" are funny now but I imagine that in 5 - 10 years these movies will be much less appealing.
However, something as 'old' as Shaun of the Dead (which is also filled with pop culture references) still works well today.

[TVC15]

Midsommar was excellent. Everyone that saw Spider-man over it is a mega loser.

[Bebpo]

Welp, gonna have to be 2 for 2 against everyone here and say Midsommar was pretty disappointing and a much worse film than Hereditary. Spider-Man was better and I would have never expected that since Spider-Man was pretty cookie cutter Marvel flick.

Midsommar looks nice and has some great "art" scene designs that sure make for a good trailer, but man that script is meh. Whereas Hereditary was a pretty original and interesting film that had you in suspense, Midsommar is not suspenseful, or scary, or interesting to anyone whose familiar to horror. It's a by the books trope-filled oh those SPOOKY FOREIGNERS movie. Like everyone acts like an idiot, and everything is telegraphed so early in the movie that 30 mins in you can tell exactly how the rest of the film will play out and it does. For me story is pretty damn important in a movie and there was nothing surprising or original here. Like outside the pretty visuals there's not much different between this and say Hostel in the core concept.

Just like Cannibal Holocaust and Green Inferno and shit, the whole omg I don't understand this weird old foreign culture that ends up

spoiler (click to show/hide)

doing human sacrifices because har har so archaic tradition

[close]

is so ugh in 2019 I thought legit filmmakers were past this. The fact that Spider-man which came out at the same time also has a "haha look at those goofy netherlanders" scene just makes this a pretty awkward weekend for American films.

Whereas I felt like almost every scene in Hereditary mattered and the pacing, while slow burn, was very tight, in Midsommar after the first day or so of the event the film just meanders pacing-wise and does not feel tight at all. Feels like the movie could've used some editing. But maybe that's just because everything is so predictable the slow burn doesn't work as well because there's no tension.

Expected a lot from this because Hereditary was really good and the trailer looked great. Pretty bummed at how disappointing it was. This and IT part 2 were the horror movies I was really expecting something great out of. Now I gotta hope they don't fuck up IT or might as well throw 2019 away for film. Only movies I've seen this year worth a real damn ended up being Booksmart and Endgame, the latter being a huge surprise since was not expecting much after IW being just a Marvel v Capcom movie.

[toku]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

is human sacrifice archaic though?
 

[close]